


exodus 9:16

by hurryup



Series: blind mechanism [1]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Character Study, Christianity, Gen, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8593615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurryup/pseuds/hurryup
Summary: It was overwhelming, sometimes, to see the intimidating figure Lvellie cut and be reminded— vividly reminded— of what it meant to have nothing and be given everything. Sometimes, very rarely, he would come up to Link and put a hand on his shoulder and Link would just ache with some nervous sensation he could not name. Like a stray in need of direction.Like a boy who'd never known a father and couldn't begin to understand what it meant to want one.





	

A long, long time ago, back when he'd still been a gangly ibis of a boy, Link used to find himself near the river.  
  
Swollen with rain, the Spree surged southwards, moving over and down from Berlin into Dresden with fantastic furor. It was terrifying. Terrifying and beautiful. Out there, the current dashed itself against the shining stones with a heart-rending relentlessness. It looked almost black when the sun went down. Link and the other kids would throw rocks in and, one by one, they would be swallowed deep down into the black heart of the river.

They seemed to sink forever.  
  
Once, when Link leaned across the rail to look into the water, an old woman touched his shoulder. Her voice was soft but firm; big eyes burning behind the wispy fall of her hair. She spoke in the rapid, harshly dictated German of those who had lived in Berlin all their lives.  
  
"Don't look into the water, boy. The river devil will see you and pull you in."  
  


* * *

 

When he was a boy, he would sometimes walk by the _Sankt-Hedwigs-Kathe_ _drale_. The majesty of that old church was palpable; it breathed grandeur. The moment you stepped inside, you were faced with the gold-plated sheen of the altar cross, decorated with red enamel. The cool, fading suggestion of blood. The corpus was carved of a single peace of ivory; white and blinding and surely belonging to some other world. Well. A world Link did not belong to, at the very least. There was nothing divine about Link. He was half-bones and half-grime, gangly and shivering and _lost_ in this Daedalian maze of nacre, cabochoned rock crystal and enamel.

This was the world of angels. Orphan trash had no business there.  
  
Back then, he'd eventually come to love the church. Love the very infrastructure of it. It was warm. Quiet. It wouldn't turn him away _—_ not him or the other kids, no; it would simply stand and shelter them from the cold. That, as far as he was concerned, was the love of God. There was no line between Church and God; everything they did, everything they were, was some extension of Him.

A failure of distinction that would follow him all his life.  
  
Tired, hungry, he'd press his skinny back against the tall, austere columns that framed the cathedral's entrance. Stand and wonder if this is what it meant to be safeguarded. The harsh daylight dappling through stained glass. The weathered, harried figure of Christ, carrying the cross. Passion in those marble eyes. Passion in every sense of the word. It was the look of a martyr, haunting and haunted. It would be years until Link saw that look again.  
  
When he'd stared at the great dome ceiling, he could swear it stared back at him. He wasn't afraid. Nor was he prepared to die.  
  
It is said prayer is never taught in Germany; it simply comes to you as naturally as breathing. There, you prayed when you woke up, you prayed while you worked, and before you went to sleep, you prayed again. Throughout the cold streets, you could hear the fervent sound of them like some fantastic shared psychosis. There was the echoing, devotional cries of street preachers; the incessant murmuring of women wrapped in the severe wraps of a mourner. They prayed against war, against pestilence, against famine. The prayed for deliverance from the demons that drove their hearts to sin and made mad appeals to the angels that might shield their children.  
  
At first, in those early days, Link would just pray to eat again. It seemed a simple bargain to make with God; let me live, let my friends live, and I will be your servant always. _Ich verspreche. Ich verspreche._  
  
(The sound of that language would never leave him. Even in adulthood, it would rattle inside him still; fading, but never forgotten.)  
  
The Vatican's protection, then, had seemed like his answer. God's end of the bargain, held with solemn grace _—_ and returned in double. The Vatican had given him everything; plenitude from nothingness. And God, that went beyond bread and shelter. Gave him purpose. Purpose, he learned, was what really kept a man alive. What kept you moving.

They gave him a Bible and a set of blades and worked him until the ache in his bones had set into something vaguely permanent. Beat him, sometimes, when he failed to quickly master some concept or advance his technique. He'd had the vague suspicion even then his treatment was especially harsh, fostering some talent that outstripped that of his fellow trainees, and time would prove him right.  
  
There was less time for prayer, in those days. Instead, the day was consumed with fighting or studying or some perilous combination of the two. The way he saw it, he was living prayer; his whole life had been made a devotional act _—_ to God, to Central _—_ though he supposed they were about the same thing. At night, he still sometimes tried to talk with God. Asked to be made stronger, more worthy. He'd lie in bed, beaten and bruised and unbroken; and when he wad mindless with the steady throb in his arms in legs, he'd just read the Bible. Ran through phrases he'd heard a hundred times.  
  
_But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth._  
  
Lying in the dark, supine, he would run a hand through his blonde hair. It was growing long. Not yet long enough to braid, but long. Still, he'd not yet been ordered to cut it, and so he hadn't.  
  
There, he'd think of how the sclera in Tewaku's normally bright eyes had been shot through with blood vessels the last time he'd seen her. The barely contained exhaustion in her step. The way long hours training had turned her girlish figure lean. How she, like him, was being made hard by her resolve— being transformed through blood and pain. Baptism through fire.  
  
_Anything for Central. Whatever it takes. Ich verspreche, Ich verspreche— for I have been raised up for this very purpose._  
  
The world became train rides (which he tolerated), paperwork (which he suited his more meticulous nature), serrated blades and shikihari (always a means to an end). They traded the mandarin collar of his fighting fatigues with a pressed uniform _—_ and then the world was Lvellie. Someplace where he could serve and belong.  
  
It was overwhelming, sometimes, to see the intimidating figure he cut and be reminded _—_  vividly reminded _—_  of what it meant to have _nothing_ and be given _everything_. Sometimes, very rarely, he would come up to Link and put a hand on his shoulder and Link would just _ache_ with that nervous sensation he could not name. Like a stray in need of direction. Like a boy who'd never known a father and couldn't begin to understand what it meant to want one.  
  
That was the thing about the God in the sky, the God in the domed roof of the _Sankt-Hedwigs-Kathedrale_ ; he was an ideal, less a father and more a ghost. Easier to see him in the unbreakable shelter of those white cathedral walls. Easier to feel his tough love in the whip of his boyhood instructor's across his back and knuckles. Easier to feel his presence in that touch, Lvellie's hand on Link's shoulder. The words "good work" or "well done" were some kind of unearthly benediction.  
  
_I am only useful when I am being used,_ Link had come to think. An insidious kind of mantra. Once he'd gotten it into his head, he couldn't get it out; he wanted to be useful, to find some way to pledge himself and give back that which he'd been given. He had his bargain with God, had his life to give to Central, to the man with the imperious eyes who had given him a cause to fight for and a place to rest his wings. Whether he was a soldier or watchdog or a reaper, it didn't matter. 

In the end, who Link was meant very little to begin was.

There could be no failing Him. There could be no failure, for Link had been raised up for this very purpose, that His name might be proclaimed.  
  
_For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours, now and forever._  
  
The bite of steel. Taste of sugar. The electric thrum of power in his body when he moved to use his seals. The gut-wrenching sight of Allen's blue eyes, lined with pale lashes, lined with the tears he never bothered to hide. Never _had_ to hide. The rosary around his neck, heavy like an anchor, choking his breath. Like a stone that would carry him down, down, to the bottom of the river.  
  
_Amen._

**Author's Note:**

> i think about link a lot also i'm drunk  
> hurryup fic @ tumblr


End file.
